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Is Social Media Marketing Missing The Boat?

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arketers are screaming at the top of their lungs that print media is down for the count and that social media is the new champ. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogs are the new big thing that will change the world! I agree with a lot of that sentiment. But, for companies large and small, is the gold rush to social media producing adequate results? And more importantly, are we doing it right?

Is Social Media Marketing Worthwhile?

To tackle the first question, is the mad dash to slap up a Facebook page and cobble together a Twitter account, not to mention the mind-numbing hours of typing responses and hoarding followers, worth it? My answer is yes and no. Great answer, huh? Social media makes sense for a lot of businesses, especially in regards to providing enhanced customer service.

For example, cable company Comcast uses Twitter to provide help with making sure customers can find information easily, as well as respond to issues directly to customers. And from personal experience, when I was purchasing a set of four new Hankook ultra high-performance summer tires for my car the other month, I noticed two prominent online tire dealers (Tire Rack and Discount Tire) had knowledgeable staff posting answers to very specific questions in third-party racing and car-lover forums. The tire dealers' guidance on proper tire sizes, tweaks, tire reviews, install questions and comments were not only helpful, but appeared to be quite effective in attracting new business from their target audience. So in that regard, social media is great.

Is Social Media Marketing Effective?

Now, on to the second question – are we, social media marketers and businesses, doing it right? Do we really understand social media and how consumers interact with it? My response – I don't think so. In some situations, like the two mentioned above, social media makes perfect sense. But, it appears to me that many companies focus on using social media in one (rarely two) of three ways: 1) brand building and awareness, 2) as a new form of mass distribution for the same old generic marketing messages, and, 3) as a more direct form of customer service. I see serious problems with the implementation of the first two.

Can social media be effective in building brands and creating awareness? Absolutely! However, I'm seeing a lot of companies taking the approach, "everyone else is doing it, so just throw something up and hope it sticks." For example, while surfing through Twitter for followers a few months ago, I noticed a few large software companies (uhh, hem, Intuit and Peach Tree to name two) that appear to have told half of their staff to setup a Twitter account and get to work talking to potential customers.

That's great that those companies are seeing the potential in social media, but blindly forcing your staff to be active on Twitter isn't the key to generating new business. In my case, it is more than a little awkward trying to find common ground between myself (the owner of small business and user of small business accounting software) and the junior manager of software engineering for such and such department who has three-quarters of his followers as fellow engineers at the software company he works for. That's an online party I just don't fit into and may make other prospective customers frighteningly uncomfortable.

What We're Missing In Social Media Marketing

In my view, the real big money payback for companies using social media is in forging truly one-to-one marketing relationships with prospects and customers. Instead of hoarding Twitter followers like the next big famine is here, or tirelessly building your Facebook fan page empire, think about your target market and the message you are sending, and ultimately, what you want to say to that audience. Pick and choose your followers. It means nothing if you have 100,000 Twitter followers if 90% of them are not in your market, or are racing to cultivate as many followers as possible, too.

There's an enormous and powerful opportunity here for companies and marketers to directly impact sales by using social media as a lead in to other forms of personalized marketing. Use social media to really reach out to your customers and prospects. Think of it as a two-way street. Don't simply broadcast the same old, tired marketing messages.

Talk to your prospects. Try like crazy to use social media marketing as the entrance to a closed-loop, one-to-one marketing system. Follow up with new contacts by integrating personalized URLs, custom webinars and individualized direct mail using variable data printing (VDP). It's a great way to keep your marketing conversation going, while slowly bringing in other marketing touch points.

Michael Borowiecki